From Bees to Bastards

So Orient lost this rather important football match. A solitary Trotta goal separated the two sides. Here’s my take on a game where I, for once, actually had a view from downstream.

If club crests ever where to start fights, the only way for Brentford to beat Orient would be if Wyverns turned out to be really allergic to bee stings. You know like some people are to nuts. Me I’m probably allergic to Alan McCormack. I find him really hard to swallow.

McCormack being one of two players on the pitch yesterday with ‘get out of jail free’ cards somewhere in their kit. The other one being Nathan Clarke. Perhaps Captain Fantastic plays like this every game. In that case I salute him for having powers of misdirection greater than many a professional illusionist. But what I usually hear is a lot different from what I saw. Walking off without a booking was lucky.

Lucky like Clayton Donaldson who seemed in a bad mood all game. Brentford fans have a point when they say Orient were favoured by the referee. But Donaldson could very well have been sent off when he stormed into that scuffle during the first half that saw him and Gary Sawyer receive yellow cards. As for who started it that’s easier - McCormack.

Speaking of things that are easy. The Orient front two was a case in point. Kevin Lisbie did a lot of running and tried to set up his team mates. Not complicating things but at the moment being let down by his goalscoring touch. David Mooney on the other hand has that touch but sometimes gives the impression that scoring simply isn’t enough. It has to be pretty as well. Frankly Moons we don’t care, just bang them in. Pretty can wait.

Romain Vincelot not only had a great game he has a pretty great beard as well. The only thing missing from his performance was a yellow card. The threat of that tenth yellow of the season hanging over the head of us supporters like the blade of a guillotine. Just pick it up already! Rip it off our worried minds like an old band-aid. Get those two games out of the way.

Marvin Bartley and Jamie Ness probably agree with me on the Vincelot suspension saga since that would mean more game time for the both of them. Orient have a strong bench at the moment. One that could cope with Vincelot sitting out two games. Looking at the names of substitutes this season compared to a few years back there really are names on there that can change games. Perhaps Robbie Simpson should have felt more at home sharing a bench with a selection of Geraint William’s players. He would have stood out like the obvious choice which is always a nice feeling.

As far as managers go my distinct feeling is that Brentford really need to finish in the top two. Warburton inherited a good team with tactics et.al. from Uwe Rösler. I don’t think he could guide a team successfully through the playoffs. Russell Slade could, I’m sure of that. But if I get a choice I’ll gladly let Warburton prove me wrong. When it comes to success for baldies my money is on Slade.

I do a lot of stupid things with my money. Gambling isn’t one of them. I do have an account on a large betting site though. With all of one hundred Swedish kronor on there. The only reason being that this gives access to reliable streams of football matches. Like Orient v Brentford. I still had Dave Victor on as commentator even though Orient World was a few seconds behind the TV images. As I understood it the Sky commentators were biased in Brentford’s favour. In those cases a sense of deja vu is preferable.

I would have preferred to win. But this loss most likely didn’t define our season. We don’t know yet what the 2013/14 season legacy will be. It may have been this game, or perhaps those three losses when Eldin Jakupovic went back to Hull. Losing Jamie Jones to injury. It may be a thing in the future. Vincelot’s tenth yellow card. Wolves at home. Promotion. A playoff final. Mooney scoring twenty league goals. There’s nine games left. History is yet to be written. Orient not ready to be written off even if Brentford and Wolves fans want that very much. It just isn’t true. It might even turn out to be false. Keep the faith you pessimistic bastards!

A Space Odyssey

In the aftermath of two very different football matches I came up with a fun way to troll Orient Player during the next goalless draw.

When you go to a game there is always some sense of excitement. Even if you’re there as a neutral. That feeling of nervousness and expectations rub off on some level. This is true even if the match itself doesn’t offer much entertainment. There is usually something happening that keep things interesting.

If you’re at home listening to the game it’s a different story. Distractions abound, and those other things will probably cause you to lose interest completely. One way to avoid this is to make sure to minimize outside stimuli. The problem with this solution is that most people think you’re weird sitting alone in a dark closet with a laptop. Also closets have an annoying habit of messing with your wifi reception.

The Notts County game experienced through Orient Player was one of those drab dull games. A perfect example of why the phrase bore draw was invented. No excitement, no incidents, no goalmouth scrambles or shots hitting the woodwork. The sole word sticking in my brain after the game was - puddles.

I think that the memories of the Notts game carried over to the Port Vale encounter. When the commentary decided to go AWOL during the first few minutes, and Orient as a team started the game on the back foot the Orient Player natives got restless and made their fears known on twitter.

The doom and gloom of the twitter time line during the first 40 minutes of the Vale game was classic Orient. Except possibly for the lack of some FFS Ling exclamations and the fact that folks were moaning about only making the play-offs instead of flirting with relegation.

Russell Slade should be told, in the sternest way possible, that building expectations isn’t a nice thing to do. At the very least he ought to be aware that failing to score in over 120 minutes entitles to the use of a few heartfelt Slade Out! tweets. A Dean Cox goal later the Bring on Brentford messages quickly pushed the negativism out of scrolls reach.

The 2-0 win at Port Vale was impressive in many ways. The pure excitement of the second half, as it was portrayed through Orient Player, more than made up for the non-event that was the Notts game. Nathan Clarke’s first goal, Eldin celebrating the disallowed goals and that rare Robbie Simpson appearance. Breaking a 57 year old winless streak was pretty satisfactory as well.

Speaking of satisfaction I have a plan that should keep things interesting the next time Orient play an inept team on a crap surface and doesn’t seem likely to score. All we need to do, as a collective (I’m talking Orient Player subscribers here) is to turn the texts and the tweets to Dave Victor into a space odyssey.

We only tweet and text lines from the movie 2001. With enough people doing it the effect should be - entertaining. Here are a few examples to get things started.

The 2001 smorgasbord

@DulcetDave Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

@DulcetDave Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

@DulcetDave Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop Dave? Stop, Dave.

@DulcetDave You don't mind talking about it, do you Dave?

@DulcetDave I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.

@DulcetDave Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

@DulcetDave Thank you for a very enjoyable game.

Why a View from Downstream?

Stupid name! Was that the best you could come up with? If you just give me a second to elaborate on the name of this blog everything will become clear. Clear as sausage broth. Using one of the more self-explanatory Swedish sayings this blog will probably spring upon you from time to time. At least if you visit here more than once.

Living in Stockholm every Orient game is an away game. Which probably explains why the only game I have seen Orient live this season was at the Lamex Stadium. Nothing like a trip to Stevenage to brighten up your day eh?

My view of another goalless performance from Robbie Simpson usually comes from the mouth of Dave Victor. Or, when Orient Player is acting up which has been known to happen, from some other biased Englishman albeit with a harder to understand accent. Thank God Hartlepool got relegated to League Two.

The things your mind sees from an Orient Player stream and the same event viewed on the extended highlights (if my English was better I would call that a misnomer) on the Sunday often vary wildly. Where Dave Victor shouted off the bar! in reality it hit the foot of the post. This is not criticism of Dave. In fact if/when I finally meet him in person I will pat him on the top of his head and say: Good work! Because it really is! I could pay a few hundred Swedish crowns per month and have access to televised Premier League games every weekend. Instead I pay for Orient Player and highlights a day later. And why? Because for me listening to Orient is far more enjoyable than watching any PL-team, let alone West Ham.

I wasn't at Oxford but I listened to the game live. Jumping madly around the living room when Lee Steele scored. Some of my best football memories have come sitting in front of a computer. A bit sad but true non the less.

My point with all of this being that writing a match report based only on what you have heard is a recipe for getting things wrong. That's why you'll never get player ratings on this blog, or angry rants about some refereeing decision. I just don't have the power Captain! I'm too far away from the action so to speak.

But even the simple act of following Orient via audio stream has changed over the years. In the beginning there was Player and the Message Board. Plus some kind of goal service. Now you have the live blog and twitter. The problem being that these two are always ahead of Orient Player. Updating your twitter feed at the wrong time can spoil the game. A first world problem if there ever was one I suppose.

As many others I have more or less left the Message Board. It never really recovered from the hacker incident and the change of platform. Not really a big loss since the Orient supporters on twitter make up for it by being a nice friendly community.

Being on twitter following things Orient it's impossible not to end up on the View from the West Stand Blog or having Matt Simpson in your timeline. So in the time honoured tradition of Standing On the Shoulders of Giants I named this blog View from Downstream to steal credit from that well known blog . It could even be seen as a kind of homage. But nah, I'm not into that.

In Sweden the season for football start in the beginning of May and end in early November. This overlap meant that growing up I watched a lot of English football since this was what was shown on TV in those days. I wish I could say that I discovered Orient back then. Late seventies, early eighties but sadly I didn't. It was an article in a Swedish morning paper, published in the early 90's that started me on the way to being a proper Orient supporter. Following a club from afar in the pre-internet days usually was scores in the paper and the occasional league table. Things have gotten easier and since 2005 I have been writing about Orient on various forums and such. Mostly on Svenska Fans but always in Swedish. This then is my attempt at getting better known among the true Orient fans. The born and bred supporters. Using my skills at Swenglish to, if not entertain you at least not bore you out of your minds.

If you follow me on twitter there have been a fair amount of tweets about Norrtulls SK my local club here in Stockholm. Last year they had a fantastic season that ended in promotion to Division 5. Which doesn't match that position in the English pyramid but a great achievement all the same. When their season start you will be getting news on twitter as NSK take on teams like Atletico Nacka, Boo FF, FK Bromma, Gustavsbergs IF, Handelskamraternas IS, Hanvikens SK, IF Lokomotiv Blackeberg, Långholmen FC, Reymersholms IK, Saltsjöbadens IF, and Sickla IF.

So if strange sounding team names from the lower leagues of Sweden are your thing things will heat up as the weather gets warmer. Hopefully this will coincide with a new memorable game in which Orient secure promotion. When they do stop by here for my View from Downstream.








Clear as sausuage broth is the Swedish version of Clear as mud. Knowledge! Isn't it a wonderful thing?